


Lamentation

by Aki_Aiko



Series: Resurrection Waltz [1]
Category: Hellraiser (Movies), Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Cenobites - Freeform, Crossover, Demons, Gen, Hellraiser - Freeform, Horror, Not A Happy Ending, forced body modification, maybe kind of hopeful?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-30
Updated: 2015-08-30
Packaged: 2018-04-18 03:25:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4690391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aki_Aiko/pseuds/Aki_Aiko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock starts an investigation that leads straight to hell.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lamentation

**Author's Note:**

> So, this was originally going to go in my Sherlock drabbles but it just kept growing and growing. I wasn't even sure if I wanted to give away what it's crossed with, as it might ruin the reveal, but went ahead and tacked it on anyway. The confrontation wound up being frustratingly vague, though.
> 
> Warnings: I'm not sure what all to warn for with this, so caution is advised. There's nothing overly graphic, the violence takes place off-stage, but it's definitely creepy (well, to me, at least). The body modification issue might be the worst of it.  
> So if anybody has tag suggestions about warnings, let me know. 
> 
> Not beta'd or brit-picked.

Sherlock and John followed the Detective Inspector into Reilly Parker’s flat. The front room had been cleared of furniture and only a pile of blankets and pillows bunched together remained. That, and a splash of blood on the floor, bright against the dull brown of the wood.

He flitted about the crime scene as usual, checking over the splatter of blood and leafing through Miss Parker’s mail, until he stopped at one of the walls and stared.

“What is it?” Lestrade asked.

Sherlock ran a finger along a crack in the wall. “Has this building had any structural issues recently?”

“I don’t know. I can ask. Is it related to...?”

“Unknown. But curious.”

+

Miss Parker’s friends dressed in black and were riddled with various body piercings. Sherlock sneered distastefully at the nub of steel he could see stuck through the girl talking to him. He could see John listening, though, so he could glance safely away and get caught up later at home, when they were both at home.

“Jesus,” John muttered as they walked away from the flashing lights of the club. “She’s one magnet away from a fatal accident.”

“Hmm. I really don’t see the attraction.”

John snorted while Sherlock tried to hide his grin.

+

That friend led to another friend who led to another friend. 

“Lamarchand,” he breathed, gaze darting about. Nervous, maybe. Or fearful.

At Sherlock’s impervious handwave, John let go of the guy’s arm. He scurried away without a backwards glance. Sherlock merely stared after him, his face set into pensive lines that aged him in the darker shadows and make him look ill in the light.

+

“Nothing?” John asked when Sherlock suddenly groaned and thunked his head back on the couch cushions. He snapped the top of his laptop closed.

“It’s all heresy. Rumors of rumors that lead nowhere...except to that one page and it was all about pain management in sexual encounters. Dull!”

“You went to a BDSM site? Of course you did.”

Sherlock lifted his head and eyed him. “I have an appointment tomorrow. You don’t have to be there.”

“Where, exactly, is ‘there’?”

+

‘There’ happened to be a small café with rather unsavory characters as its customers. John shifted nervously and watched Sherlock talking to an older Chinese man a few tables away. He couldn’t hear what they were saying but didn’t like the almost manic look of curiosity on Sherlock’s face as his eyes stared, fixated on something the other man had slid across the table.

John caught only a glimpse of silver before it, whatever it was, disappeared inside the opening seam of Sherlock’s coat.

+

When they got home, Sherlock stood in the middle of the room and fidgeted. John nudged him out of the way to get to the kitchen.

“So what did he say?”

“Hmm?”

“The guy. Was he Lamarchand?”

“No. He was...someone else. I’m going to bed. Don’t disturb me.”

“Wha...?” John turned sharply just in time to catch a glimpse of Sherlock’s back as he strode away towards his room. “What about the case?”

“Sleep, John!”

“But it’s not even dark out.”

+

John stayed up a few more hours by himself. Occasionally, he paced out to the door to Sherlock’s room but, hearing nothing, went to the kitchen, made tea, and sat in his chair to work on editing what he’d written up on the last case.

It was eerily quiet. Even London herself seemed to be asleep, no cars or people passing by. With a sense of unease rippling down the muscles down his back, John finally gave in and packed the day up. 

He made one last round to Sherlock’s room. It was still quiet, though if he strained hard enough he could hear the shifting of bedsheets as if Sherlock were making small movements inside.

+

A sound woke John in the middle of the night. A chime or a rattle, something enough out of place to drag him from bed. He grabbed his gun from the nightstand on his way. It was probably nothing but Sherlock had enough enemies that precaution was always a good idea.

He had just entered the sitting room when he heard it: a loud thump, something being dragged across the floor...and Sherlock’s voice, abruptly cut off.

“Sherlock!”

Flipping the safety off the gun, John hurried to Sherlock’s locked door. The light under the door was strange and glowing, fading away with every second John stood there. He didn’t bother calling for Sherlock again, just kicked the door in and entered with gun drawn.

The room was empty, the light gone.

All that remained of Sherlock was blood smeared across the tousled covers of his bed.

+

Mycroft might have had the might of the British government behind him, but even all that power did nothing to bring Sherlock back. At first, John heard from him everyday. Then every other day, which turned into weeks, into months, until two years had passed them by without a word.

The last time John had seen him, Mycroft looked at him with tired eyes and shook his head.

He'd started to give up hope, until a text came that had him grabbing his cane and rushing the clinic to the black car waiting outside.

+

Assistance required. Come at once. MH

The message was at once terrifying and Sherlockian enough to reassure.

 

+

The driver dropped him off at a familiar warehouse. John walked to the front door, taking little notice of the faint black lines along the path to the front door. Inside hadn’t changed much, except for the intricate circular pattern painted in black on the floor and the little girl sitting in the middle of it with a box in her hand.

“What’s this, then?” John asked, crossing over to where Mycroft stood in his tailored suit as if this was just an ordinary day for him. Maybe it was. After all, John add no idea what the man had gotten up to since Sherlock’s disappearance.

“A chance,” Mycroft said, “to get my brother back.”

+

When the box shifted (“It’s a puzzle box,” Mycroft said), John shifted with it, moving forward to check on the girl’s bleeding hand. Mycroft blocked his way with a raised arm. 

“We should move inside the circle now.”

John eyed the light seeping in through the small nooks and crannies in the wall. “What’s happening?”

“Get inside the circle, Dr. Watson. And let the girl do her job.”

+

The walls parted and demons stepped out. They were each somewhat human, if twisted into obscene parodies. The lead...thing...stepped forward, opened his mouth to speak-and stopped, one foot mere inches from the circle Mycroft had pulled John into.

“What is this?” it asked in a melodious voice that held a strange current of evil echoing through it. He looked directly at Mycroft instead of the girl staring up in horror.

“It is a place of safety,” Mycroft said. “None of your kind may cross without being trapped within.”

The creature’s lip curled. “Fool. You have not the power to contain us.”

Mycroft smiled. “I already have. Isn’t that right...Sherlock?”

+

Behind the lead demon of the hell brigade, the one with all the spikes in his head, were others who’d been summoned by the box, now set carefully at the girl’s folded legs.

The man Mycroft had called by his brother’s name was tall and pale with a bald head and his neck elongated by a series of metal rings which made his face float as if separate from his body. He looked up when Mycroft spoke, blood seeping out between rings, but had no eyes to see him with.

Breath catching, John stepped forward. Mycroft once again flung an arm out to stop him.

“Outside this building is another trap,” he said, “Outside it another, and outside it...well. Suffice it to say, you will be leaving on my terms.”

“Terms. One does not make terms with hell.”

“Perhaps one should start.”

+

Sherlock tried to follow like a dog follows its master. When it became apparent that none of the others were coming back from whatever hell they’d come from, he froze, head moving to where Mycroft and John still stood.

“Sherlock?” John tried. Mycroft lowered his arm and let John move slowly outside the circle. “Sherlock.”

He reached out towards that impossibly pale face. What he hadn’t noticed earlier was that, lost in the fold of his dark leathers, the nails of Sherlock’s fingers had been replaced with sharp blades. He had a brief flashback to watching a Freddy Krueger with Harry as a child, and then a flash of silver flashed before his eyes. As John stumbled back with a hiss of pain, Mycroft made a small gesture and large men leapt from the shadows to tackle Sherlock to the ground.

John struggled to stand. Blood poured down his face and soaked into the collar of his jumper while Sherlock struggled beneath the mass of people, completely silent. In the end, it took five men and a doctor to subdue him. Apparently, drugs worked on whatever demon Sherlock had become-or perhaps the dark gods had betrayed him.

+

“They couldn’t harm anyone else if you’d kept them,” John said as he and Mycroft waited at the hospital for Sherlock to come out of surgery.

Mycroft sniffed. He had his umbrella back in hand and held onto it with a tightened fist. “Those things were abominations. Do you really believe that hell would not follow behind if I had?”

Your brother is one of those abominations, John wanted to say. Instead, he just sighed.

 

+

John had to go through a security check past three doors before he could get to Sherlock’s locked ward. He’d become a pro at it by now, just flipping the badge Mycroft had given him at each guard and swept by without a word being said between them.

The last door opened to a sitting room-behind a long glass wall which John approached cautiously, afraid that any movement could be heard through the wall vents that connected the two rooms.

On the other side of the glass, Sherlock sat at a round table, bent over a scattering of electronics that might have once been part of his television set. His hair had grown out, he’d gained some color back-some for him meant almost none at all-but he’d lost the tips of his fingers where they’d removed the metal that had been embedded there. He still couldn’t see. From what John could tell, he was just running his hands over the mess in front of him.

John reached for the wall and pushed a button. “Sherlock.”

Sherlock’s head slowly lifted, metal rings balancing it birdlike. He stared ahead of him as if he could see John through the clear glass.

“Sherlock, it’s me. John.”

He stood in one fluid movement, badly fitted dressing gown (which Mycroft had forced upon him) flapping behind him, and glided towards the window. He hit the glass with a thump and pressed his body against it as if trying to push himself through.

His eyes should have been blazing, lit up with his own intellect, instead of the hollowness left behind empty sockets.

“Sherlock,” John repeated, though the other man couldn’t hear him without the intercom being activated.

Sherlock slammed his hands against the glass, then drew the stubs of his fingers down it, leaving a trail of smudges behind them.

John didn’t flinch. And Sherlock didn't move away.


End file.
